In this Friday, March 2, 2018, photo residents walk past a poster showing Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Xi, poised to rule over China indefinitely, is at the center of the Communist Party�s most colorful efforts to build a cult of personality since the death of the founder of the People's Republic, Mao Zedong, in 1976. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) less

In this Friday, March 2, 2018, photo residents walk past a poster showing Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Xi, poised to rule over China indefinitely, is at the center of the Communist Party�s most ... more

Photo: Mark Schiefelbein, Associated Press

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Chinese President Xi Jinping casts his vote for an amendment to China's constitution that will abolish term limits on the presidency and enable him to rule indefinitely, during a plenary session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sunday, March 11, 2018. less

Chinese President Xi Jinping casts his vote for an amendment to China's constitution that will abolish term limits on the presidency and enable him to rule indefinitely, during a plenary session of the National ... more

Photo: Andy Wong, AP

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In this March 1, 2018, photo, a women takes a picture as a couple looks at posters featuring drawings of Chinese President Xi Jinping and late communist leader Mao Zedong with their quotes, on display for sale at a market in Beijing. Many Western scholars who studied China believed that the opening to the outside world engineered by reformer Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s would pave the way for corresponding political freedoms. That vision has been categorically shattered under President Xi Jinping, who many once thought would be the next great reformer. In just five years, Xi has consolidated more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong and is now primed to rule as president-for-life. less

In this March 1, 2018, photo, a women takes a picture as a couple looks at posters featuring drawings of Chinese President Xi Jinping and late communist leader Mao Zedong with their quotes, on display for sale ... more

Photo: Andy Wong, AP

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Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for a plenary session of China's National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sunday, March 11, 2018. Many Western scholars who studied China believed that the opening to the outside world engineered by reformer Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s would pave the way for corresponding political freedoms. That vision has been categorically shattered under President Xi Jinping, who many once thought would be the next great reformer. In just five years, Xi has consolidated more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong and is now primed to rule as president-for-life. less

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for a plenary session of China's National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sunday, March 11, 2018. Many Western scholars who studied China ... more

Photo: Mark Schiefelbein, AP

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FILE - In this April 6, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, sit as they pose for photographers before a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. Although the moment, protagonists and locations become enshrined in history books, major summits hold no guarantee of further progress. In some cases, the summit is as good as it gets as relations remain stagnant or plummet further. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) less

FILE - In this April 6, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, sit as they pose for photographers before a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. Although the moment, ... more

Photo: Alex Brandon, STF / Associated Press

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A live image of Chinese President Xi Jinping is displayed above delegates during the second plenary session of the National People's Congress in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on March 9, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / GREG BAKERGREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images less

A live image of Chinese President Xi Jinping is displayed above delegates during the second plenary session of the National People's Congress in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on March 9, 2018. / AFP PHOTO ... more

Photo: GREG BAKER, Contributor / AFP/Getty Images

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Politburo Standing Committee member Li Zhanshu (L), China's President Xi Jinping (C) and Premier Li Keqiang stand during the second plenary session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 9, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / GREG BAKERGREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images less

Politburo Standing Committee member Li Zhanshu (L), China's President Xi Jinping (C) and Premier Li Keqiang stand during the second plenary session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the ... more

Photo: GREG BAKER, Contributor / AFP/Getty Images

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Delegates attend a plenary session of China's National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sunday, March 11, 2018. China's rubber-stamp lawmakers on Sunday passed an historic constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits that will enable President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely. less

Delegates attend a plenary session of China's National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sunday, March 11, 2018. China's rubber-stamp lawmakers on Sunday passed an historic ... more

Photo: Mark Schiefelbein, AP

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In this Nov. 16, 2017, photo, women walk by a TV screen showing a documentary footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting a villager's house with a picture of late communist leader Mao Zedong, at the Beijing railway station in Beijing. Many Western scholars who studied China believed that the opening to the outside world engineered by reformer Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s would pave the way for corresponding political freedoms. That vision has been categorically shattered under President Xi Jinping, who many once thought would be the next great reformer. In just five years, Xi has consolidated more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong and is now primed to rule as president-for-life. less

In this Nov. 16, 2017, photo, women walk by a TV screen showing a documentary footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting a villager's house with a picture of late communist leader Mao Zedong, at the ... more

Photo: Andy Wong, AP

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Xi Jinping's rise shatters hopes for democracy in China

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BEIJING (AP) — Orville Schell, a longtime China expert, has vivid memories of his first trip to the country back in 1975. Mao Zedong was leading China through the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, and Chinese were being shamed, beaten and even killed for perceived political mistakes.

Things were vastly different when he returned four years later. Mao was dead, and the country was pulling itself together under reformist Deng Xiaoping. So radical was the transformation that some Chinese felt emboldened enough to plaster posters on a wall in central Beijing criticizing past excesses and advocating democracy.

"China had suddenly gone from being this implacable enemy that was closed to any contact to being quite open and receptive to interacting," recalled Schell, now the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the New York-based Asia Society.

That opening and Deng's subsequent market-style economic reforms fueled speculation that China was destined to become a democracy.

The rise of President Xi Jinping, who is now poised to rule indefinitely after China's rubber-stamp legislature voted Sunday to eliminate presidential term limits, has changed all that, a growing number of Western analysts say.

"In the past, both sides presumed China was trying to become more democratic," Schell said. "What Xi marks so clearly is that there is no longer the pretension ... that China is becoming more democratic and open."

Now Playing:

China’s parliament has today backed a move to lift limits on how long its presidents can stay in office.
It opens the door for President Xi Jinping — who will have his second five-year term as party chief approved later this week — to remain in power indefinitely.
The country’s ruling Communist Party put forward the constitutional amendment last month and it was passed by loyal party members on Sunday.
Critics attacked the move and suggested a Mao Zedong-type cult of personality was forming.
But the government quickly mounted a propaganda push, blocking some articles and publishing pieces praising the party, reported Reuters.
The limit of two five-year presidential terms was written into China's constitution after Mao's death in 1976 by Deng Xiaoping, who recognised the dangers of one-man rule and the cult of personality and instead espoused collective leadership.
The government has said lifting the term limits is about protecting the authority of the party with Xi at its centre. The party's official People's Daily has said this does not mean life-long terms.
While the presidency is important, Xi's positions as head of the party and head of the military are considered more important, and these titles are always given first by state media. With the passage of the amendment, now none of the posts have formal term limits.
The amendments also include inserting Xi's political theory into the constitution, something that was already done for the party constitution in October, and clauses to give a legal framework to a new super anti-corruption department.

Media: Euronews

Under Deng, the ruling Communist Party began to allow small-scale free enterprise and eased social controls.

To ensure the party's survival, leaders embarked on a bold experiment in the 1990s to create a formal system of succession. The Chinese public still had no voice in picking their government, but leaders would share power and step down after fixed terms.

Even that has been swept aside under Xi, who is poised to rule for as long as he wants as China's most powerful leader since Mao. The move to scrap presidential limits revives the specter of one-man rule that Deng tried to ward off when he abolished lifetime tenure in 1982.

"The control of public opinion in China right now is much looser than it was in Mao's day, but it's much tighter than it was under Deng Xiaoping," said Sidney Rittenberg, 96, one of the few Americans to have personally known Mao.

Still, he predicted China would never return to earlier periods of isolation, citing the economy's dependence on openness to the world, Beijing's rising global status and greater awareness among Chinese citizens.

"It's not so easy to turn the clock back just by changing the constitution," he said.

According to Rittenberg, becoming China's ruler resulted in a "very clear" change in Mao's personality. He endured the shift, painfully, when he was accused of being part of a foreign spy ring. He spent 16 years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement.

It is precisely a repetition of that history that some still fear.

"My generation has lived through Mao," said Li Datong, a former editor for the state-run China Youth Daily. "That era is over. How can we possibly go back to that?"

Even if today's China remains far removed from the chaos of Mao's time, it is likewise distant from the massive student-led protests of 1989, when the country had its closest brush with a shift to greater democracy.

The demonstrations, centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, gave voice to pent-up frustrations about corruption and a stifling political system. Deng ordered a violent crackdown that killed hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people.

But even after the crackdown, the party eased controls on travel and the economy began to pick up speed. Reformists remained optimistic that political liberalization might follow.

Hopes rose ahead of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, cast by the party as a coming-out for a confident, modern China.

"One of the things people hoped for in the run-up to the Olympics was that the exposure to the outside would help to convince more Chinese people and lawmakers that the way things are done outside China isn't necessarily scary or dangerous," said Jeremiah Jenne, a writer and Chinese history teacher in Beijing.

But the global financial crisis that year prompted the leadership to "rethink the extent to which China should be open to the world," Jenne said.

Foreign advocates of democracy had hoped the internet, cellphones and other emerging technologies would erode party control. Instead, Chinese leaders invested heavily in developing web filters and using the internet and video surveillance networks to strengthen their ability to keep tabs on the public.

Since assuming the party leadership in 2012, Xi has overseen a further diminishment of civil society, jailing or otherwise silencing writers, activists and human rights lawyers. Online discussion of the elimination of term limits has been heavily censored.

Beijing has long argued that Western-style democracy is not appropriate for China. It cites political and bureaucratic logjams in Washington and elsewhere as evidence of the superiority of its Marxist-Leninist rule.

"Some key parts of the Western value system are collapsing," said an editorial in the Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper. "Democracy, which has been explored and practiced by Western societies for hundreds of years, is ulcerating."

Many Western analysts have likewise ceased envisioning a democratic China.

"We see now that history is not ineluctably moving toward democracy," said Schell, the American China expert. "History is just moving where it moves."